Pink Cockatoo - what's in a name?

Sir Thomas Mitchell was a major of the British army who came to Australia in 1827. In 1828 major Mitchell was appointed Surveyor General and quickly commenced to survey routes out of Sydney Town that are basically the same as the main roads to Parramatta, Liverpool and Berrima today.

Image credit: Australian Musuem. Map Credit: 'Queensland Stories'

A little later, Mitchell conducted several explorations of inland NSW, Qld and Vic, during which he had several encounters with the indigenous inhabitants. In 1836, on the Murray River near Robinvale, Mitchell and 16 of his party drove a group of about 150 aboriginal people into the river and commenced firing on them for around five minutes as they tried to escape. A government enquiry of the incident resulted in little consequence. Mitchell later named the site of the massacre as Mt Dispersion.

During his expeditions, Mitchell waxed lyrical over, ‘a red-topped cockatoo of the interior’. The bird had been described earlier and had been given various local names: Desert Cockatoo, Leadbeater’s Cockatoo (after the London taxidermist and ornithologist) and until 1977, Pink Cockatoo.

In 1977, the Royal Australian Ornithologists Union (BirdLife Australia) voted to rename the bird Major Mitchell Cockatoo in honour of the explorer despite his misdeeds. This was later reversed in 2023 when the bird was given back its old, more descriptive name of Pink Cockatoo avoiding the contentious matter of naming a faunal beauty after a sometime colonial subjugator.

Pink Cockatoo at Moonlit Sanctuary

Pink Cockatoos inhabit the arid and semi-arid areas of central Australia. They are listed as ‘vulnerable’ in Victoria and probably their greatest threat is the loss of hollow-bearing trees in which they nest (I think we’ve heard that before). Moonlit Sanctuary at Pearcedale has a pair and it’s a bit closer than central Australia.

A recent study of the genetics of the Pink Cockatoo has shown that there are two sub-species of the bird; one to the north-west of the Lake Eyre Basin and one to the east. Researchers also found some marker genes that are proving useful in the forensic investigations of bird-trafficking crimes involving the species.